At 10 I gave up
on God: those horrible
fights in our pristine
Colonial home, attacks really,
inflamed by dad
more or less daily,
his unchecked mocking
of my buck teeth,
of my boyish exuberance,
mom's chronic collapse
at these gates of hell
no matter how many rosaries
on our knees the family
circled those beads,
the fat monsignor with his pinky
rings, Lincoln Continental,
how he bullied us altar boys..
Yes, I was 10 when the universe's
curtain dropped after finishing
the paper route Sunday morning,
me, my new knowing, my sad
bike, this strange loss, a stranger
gain.
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